Professor John FitzGerald:

Regarding local authorities, we established the adaptation committee. Not a single economist was appointed to it. They were all from scientific backgrounds because we needed their expertise on adaptation across a range of disciplines. Local authorities are crucial where adaptation is concerned. When we spoke to them first, we received a very good presentation from Clare County Council. A man there was doing remarkable work on predicting possible flooding in the Shannon region by using buoys at sea and collating information. He could tell whether Shannon Airport would be flooded. However, on the other side of the Shannon are Kerry and, at the top, Limerick. We deemed local authorities too small to do this work by themselves. I am sure the man in question talked to the neighbouring councils. Climate action regional offices, CAROs, were set up, in which local authorities were grouped together with environmental offices, which provided the expertise. This was a major innovation. Local authorities are the ones that have to clean up - I will not say "the shit" - the problems when we are flooded and things go wrong. They need advice and resources. This is an adaptation to which people have not paid enough attention. The people of central Cork probably have, but the problems of central Cork – for example, rising sea levels - will also affect Dublin and Limerick. Local authorities need help and resources to determine what they have to do.

We also need to plan our resources for adaptation. When I appeared before an Oireachtas committee last year, I believe it was Senator Chambers who pressed the Department strongly on the budget for adaptation to deal with future coastal and river flooding and the budget for dealing with the danger that we will cook our elderly in nursing homes because the temperature is too high and there is no ventilation. Local authorities have an important role to play, but they need assistance in doing so.

However, 25 elements are too many. I speak from experience. I have been a regulator of the energy sector in Northern Ireland. Between 2003 and 2007 I was on the Northern Ireland Authority for Energy Regulation. I was on the Central Bank Commission until the end of last month. The problem as a regulator is that if one is given too many objectives, one must consider them and if one does not consider them all in detail and write up what one is doing, one is subject to judicial review. If there are 25 things - remember that one is talking about a council of part-time people and a secretariat that is under pressure - then one must show one has considered all 25. Now, one does so indirectly. If one must document that and then defend it in the courts, however, it could be extremely time consuming.

Our problem in the Northern Ireland authority was that our major task was to deliver a secure energy system to consumers at minimum cost in the long run and to deal with climate change. The problem was that dealing with climate change meant raising the prices for consumers. If, therefore, one gives lots of objectives and the council must then arbitrate between them, one is moving into an area which is more for the Oireachtas than the council. One should keep it relatively simple, therefore, in terms of what the council is asked to do because 25 is just too much.

The split methane target is important because that is what the science says. When I took up my position I thought my job was going to be to encourage the farming community to get out of livestock totally by 2050. The first thing we learned was the science is actually more complicated and that is not the right answer. If we do not a have a split target for 2050 and we must decarbonise, assuming that methane is like carbon dioxide, we would have to put in place carbon budgets which plan to eliminate all cattle by 2050. Quite rightly, the farming community would say this is rubbish because the science does not say that is the answer.

For credibility, and where appropriate, we must reflect what the science says and the report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, IPCC, last year was important in this regard. It is interesting that the latest European Commission proposals, although not fleshed out on this issue, look to be moving in this direction. We feel, therefore, we must reduce our methane emissions. In its legislation, the New Zealand Government plans to reduce emissions by 20% to 40% by 2050. We do not know what the right target is. It is going to be substantially less than what we do today but it will not be zero. We need the Oireachtas to tell us what we are to plan for and we will then put in place carbon budgets to try to deliver that.